MY WITCH S2: G is for Ghoststories
by NotQuiteNormOld
Summary: Rumours and stories, along with a touch of reality have often led back to myths.. Nerissa is not only conjuring her own myths, but awakening the old. Caleb and Will have been united, but Nerissa has annihilation of the Castle in mind.
1. Chapter 1

_In a land barren of the thrusting technology, a pleasure of dawn and dusk might fill it's men. A simple story to the young was often without logic, no right mind would truly scare from such a simplicity.. But in the night time, shadows allowed the minds to dip.. A conceivable tale; a myth. A dark story of a ghost feared but feigned with disbelief.. In the sweet dawn of earliest sunrise, a dank pleasure had been said to sweep between the shadows of deeper night. Some claimed her the Queen of Meridian herself, the late that was suspected by many as death of her son's doing.. An astonishing beauty to tempt the men to join her. A mermaid[0] perhaps, with fonder copulations with which to seduce.._

_No man hisself's name spoken, but who would admit to such a thing?_

_To scandal and evil at once.. Men laughed and jeered in the lightness, with bravery and heart...until the night time.._

A scentless cool of sudor sweat rolled purposely over young and ocean-coloured skin. A simple man with the thought of his wife, the fear that he was yet to marry her: any seduction, this young man might be unworthy. His strong-set graft of rocky features made to poise. No matter the worth of the castle, the young man's heart lay to his wife. Any day that he might often gaze toward her; as of now he gazed at almost equally fine canvas silks.

This man was rarely wrong, and though admittedly, humbly so. In the rebellion, the youth did not allow it; the mistaken Hero, of Julian's. This current young man was rarely mistaken, a thin hand of navy in the early shade on his weapon. It was too close. Too close to the youth of a Queen.. There was little more; her mother's bedroom where she slept... A rustle in the windless hour. "Who goes as close to Our Lady?"

The brave voice of that rustle merely trembled, much like the focus of the Guard. Prince Phobos had been loud through his servers.. A clater. A simple buzz that droned over and around him. He reminded himself that this would be no act of Phobos at the least...though he might never know if Prince Phobos were to face him. For initially, even the leader Caleb had not been sure...he claimed. The lank guard forced himself pursuit; he would face a ghost. She could never be the beauty all presumed. Through shades of morning velvets, the sheet of blue that would blanket the world. A gossip claimed she had moved on to the foreign Earth anyway.

"I asked, stranger, _who goes?_"

**...**

Nerissa smiled with plumping skin. She emerged with fabricated toweling. "Ach, Thero, you should put that sword away!"

"You should have called." The thin boy forced the blade out of the light. He gruffed his words with a stubborn embarrassment and pressed a fat pair of fingers to tweak his nose before walking on beside him for 'Trill' to return him to his initial place of post. "It is my job to protect, not to be checking the maidens doing their chores."

"Ah, hush! Put that pout away too or I shall sought your to-be-wed. I'm no demon!"

"The maidens might argue it though, Trill. You come when you please!"

"I do when I can."

"..and the Queen is only fonder! I tell you, I see a witch."

"And I see egotism in the young man." She slapped over the side of his head and hate her own chubby smile; the thick Queen only held preference to her in hopes of seeming smaller, she supposed. The tainted tramp ought to if she didn't. Nerissa slipped past the door, into the quaint and stolen room. Pale blues and finest fineries.. Nerissa snarled at the antiquity, while the child dreamt of infidelity and interbreeding. The woman's plump fingers laced the towels perfectly with disdain, before plucking a fine bore-hair comb, which had surely belonged to the spider. The lady 'Trill' had spied it lying in the bed room.. Not that the spider had lived out Thanos. Not that she would have for all that she'd done.

Nerissa dropped the brush, with one or two less lengthening dirty hairs, and glanced again at the foul creature.

And then Nerissa was gone.

**...**

Caleb's silence filled the dreadfulness that came in morning; the revaluations that came as those had a chance to peek at the awful night. Bright sunlight would soon coat the bedroom, and Aldarn would no longer be too asleep for Caleb to see his face. Caleb had not slept the night.

There had been no focus, not in Caleb's mind. There had been no brightly light. If Caleb had only stayed; had bargained for Aldarn's freedom.. Aldarn was desperate to become a man and always had been, but Drake would be the only man Caleb could truly identify..and it was in Drake's stupidity that he had found the complex. And Drake relied on himself, but Caleb had never taught enough to Aldarn. Maybe it wasn't his job. Maybe it was that Aldarn was hardly the mind of Phobos and his incredibility came more from his heart.

He would never have his face again. Not as it had been.

The only way that Caleb could resolve, was resolution that he would make it up. Caleb would have to make it better and in that sense the dawn was breaking: the light was already coming and it might be time to start all over. Caleb had remembered his promise to a girl, but the cold species had evaporated by the time Caleb had turned to face her. Some wise boy had told him to be better, and Caleb watched Aldarn's fragile smile.

**...**

_...In the cool mists, Aldarn watched the sight with unyielding tears. For didn't she know, that she had been saved?__ Aldarn watched the sight silently, as she paraded in more and less than Aldarn dare' see. The brush of roast on her cheeks to reveal what he'd guessed. He'd had weeks to watch her every day. The Queen Elyon was in love with her brother and Aldarn watched the hatred unfolding.._

_A surreal mask of clever notions, of silvery eyes slicing into the icy of his. A masquerade that neither would be winning, because she seemed to irk him all the same. Not that Phobos showed it...but Aldarn had watched Caleb for a thrice of years an knew the expression. He knew the pain within her eyes, when Queen Elyon teared in self emasculation; the hatred of her impurity something that would viciously tear at her goodness. He'd once tried to tell her, that Aldarn still thought she could be good, but the frozen Princess within the Queen refused to be hearing. She'd bat him away as he tried. "Aldarn..?"_

_"Your Grace." Aldarn bowed, in a floral room that he'd never seen before. Of blues and greens and floral lilacs, of all colours that he knew and Aldarn immediately recognised that he was dreaming. If he was in her room at all, he would be hung for the disruption. This wasn't what her bedroom looked like; painted florals coating the walls. But in a dream or not, tears swamped the young girl's eyes. She wasn't yet fourteen, hardly a woman. Hardly a queen, he stepped forward feebly; his gaze on her crying eyes like a dulled night, though patently aware that she was undressed. He wouldn't look at her chemise. She knew he wouldn't look at her chemise._

_Not even if he'd wanted to. "I can't do this.."_

_"I'll keep your secret."_

_An ironic smile. He was glad that she smiled, but Queen Elyon would be no happier. Aldarn had already accepted that there was nothing he could do. He was a simple guard and it wasn't his place to interfere. It wasn't his place to mark a judgement because he'd thought Caleb was boring enough.._

_She might be wonderful._

* * *

><p>I think it's clear that I think Aldarn, even in his dreams is adorable.. ^^<p>

[0] Mermaids being stuff of legend - they tempted the sailors into the sea's only to viciously drown them, in certain interpretations. It was seen that no man, no matter how good, would resist such a fine beauty.

Another note being the scandal in Elyon taking her mother's room - to the least, Prince Phobos would not be happy.


	2. Chapter 2

_...In the chills of icy mountainside, the final embers of burnt magma glowing slightly as they fought the cold that froze them, Will Vandom felt the raw nip penetrating her insides. Frost grew in fragments over her skin as blistering snow sliced past her; she had long stopped wincing, frozen in her place by the doubt. 'What if no-one is coming?'_

_"C-Cal-leb is-s c-c-com-m-ming.." Tears lay frigid in the tips of her eyelids, snow building on her eyelids in hasty attempt to persuade her that her eyes felt too heavy.. That she could simply sleep on forever.. This wasn't where she'd been and there was no time she'd awoken. This was a dream. "H-he'll-ll w-wak-ke me up-p-"_

_The final word turned into a cold seethe before she'd finished, and Will gasped for biting air the cut within her. She was so cold. So cold. 'You could just die.'_

_"I-" Will could neither speak for the pain and effort, nor her lack of any argument. A fear within graced her with the thought that perhaps she'd truly cease to be, the disturbing nature of her own voice of conscience, rather than Nerissa. And in that realisation, Will felt sick. 'You're alone. You're alone and no one is coming for you.'_

_There was no way that Will could believe or concieve these words as her own, and she resolved that the witch had stolen her voice: Will could no longer use it. But then..she was alone. On the edge of a vast chaos of mountain, which theoretically did not reside on Metamoor. It was on Earth.. And Will had no idea how close it might be. "C-Cale-b iss-s com-m-m-in-ng f-for m-me!"_

_It might have seemed much more boundless than it was; a bare croak in the screams of the elements. And her inner monologue just had to be much louder.. 'Is he?'_

..Will searched the springtime lightness with wide eyes and uncertainty, to find the empty shadows. It did not take a moment, and Will didn't feel the cold as she flew out of her bed. Out of her room with inner screamings.. _What had she done? What had she done? _"CALEEEEEEEEB!"

**...**

Taranee awoke to the noise. The- The silence screamed loudly to her as she rolled away from her facing the wall. The flashes of nights and dreams through her mind and she learned more than she could ever want to know. The secrets that tumbled within her mind that were never hers to find; not her peace; not her place; not her mind.

The dark girl stretched in the humble Sunday light, the sun's bright shadow creeping in to greet her as her muscles slowly woke. She might never have seen things as ghastly, but Taranee resolved to focus on the beauty of the morning; the swift horizon which came directly from the darkest hour and something far far deeper than teenagedom. Will Vandom saw everything, and yet she still saw _everything _in Caleb. And though she'd yet found the skill to read just anyone, Taranee could hope he felt the same..

Before the musings could develop, a simple knock filled her bedroom. Dark, almost black brown eyes darted and Taranee's lips played a peaceful smile at the sight of her brother. The tall, masculine boy grinned cooly in the tresses of his surfer-boy hair and she'd forgotten how she'd missed him. A small college, but it was far enough away; the ideas of constant weekend visits slowly fading as time took it's own stand on the idea. "Hey, Birthday girl! Surprise!"

"Bir-' Taranee's eyes almost widened at the thought, lost within days and conflicts.. A box laced in his fingers and some nostalgia to the awful pink giftwrap he'd used last year, though unsurprising as he'd promised he'd save it when she'd been so enthused. "I heard you get in last night. Awful surprise.."

He grinned and shrugged at her own smile and she felt herself relax when he tossed the box in her direction; the noted clinky sound as she caught it in her hands. "Sorry. But I got you something nice, so you'll forgive me."

"How humble of you to say.." Taranee neatly tore the paper anyway, with an eyebrow raised as she broke down several layers too many of paper, "How long until I find the empty cardboard box?"

"Funny.." She'd reached the box though, a teal-blue that she fondly brushed her fingers over, before pushing the lid off the box. "It's nice, right? I found it in a shore shop.."

"Cool.." Taranee gazed with a liking for the thin, surfy-cream beads that separated beads; blues and greens, yellowy-oranges and reds, a swirling lilac that she was keen on. She instantly pulled the item out and slipped it over her chocolate-toned skin, admiring the contrast and the daintiness it seemed to have before she smiled thankfully. "Thanks! It's really nice!"

"I just _said _that.." She grinned at the sulky egotism he feigned, before a more serious smile replaced it. "It's meant to be this spiritual thing too.. The different stones are for peace and harmony, life, protection, and of course beauty, little sis'.."

But her gaze had dropped to the bracelet at _peace_..._protection..._ Taranee found herself absorbed in the pretty beads for moments, before she graced him one final smile. "It's really beautiful Peter.. Thanks."


	3. Chapter 3

_"No!"_ Nerissa smirked tastefully as her fingers swept over photographs and personal images; the more interesting of these being those which were overturned, withholding the smiling face of a child that Susan Vandom would never admit to being unwanted. The woman was young, with seldom flaws as she marketed success. Will took little from her and Nerissa didn't doubt she took little _good _from the anonymous father who had been stripped of the _still _Mrs Vandom's walls. Though, in accordance..Susan Vandom had by now stripped herself. The woman slept little, Nerissa knew, and rarely in her own household. _"Caleb!"_

"Will, what's wrong!" Her mother's voice cried out. A smooth silk of the tone gliding from Nerissa's lips in frustrated reprimanding of the daughter's screams.. Nerissa's hair shortening and lightening slightly, her eyes changing along with her face in a glamour that she'd afforded her time to present to Will. Will needn't know, when Nerissa sauntered past her prey. Will needn't know who warped her nightmares. "Can't you just stop! Some of us are _trying _to sleep and I was working all last night!"

Nerissa gently swayed her hips as she strode to the kitchen, pushing her arms to cross over her chest as her face raised a brow at the girl. "No! He's gone!"

"Who's g- Will!"

Nerissa had grabbed the flimsy wrist, but as though a jerking reaction - Will stumbled back, almost fainting. "NO! DON'T TOUCH ME!"

"Will, I am your mother and you will listen to-"

"NO, CALEB!" It was almost amusing, to watch the wreck screaming where she was; coiled within the small crack of space between counter and fridge. Cold sweat from hefty nightmares, and a tsunami of tearing smeared dirtily over her face as she pulled her knee's closer - a shivering rat which had been drenched as soon as she'd got used to _not _feeling as though she was drowning. "He's coming! J-just go away!"

"You're fifteen years old! Start- acting like it!" Susan Vandom's appearance of red nails curled to grasp the reluctant girl; pulling with her might, Nerissa only felt more alive as skin touched energetic skin. She might well be glowing.. But just as much she seemed to seethe at Nerissa's touch. A faintness to her as brown eyes glazed s slightly, and Will jerked in knowing what it was.

"NO! GET OFF ME! GET AWAY FROM ME! NO!"

It was only a little fun anyhow..

**...**

Cornelia Hale pressed a firm line over the dark, maroon-colour paper to create a crease. The tape complied easily to her whim and the graceful pink ribbon would tie delicately around the gift box; within a clash of fine wools embroidering into vintage stock - she had seen Taranee's gaze wander countlessly to the item. It's native-feigned patterns and velvety texture had been made with Taranee Cook in mind and it had seemed the thing to do to splash out on what the girl was too sensible to buy. Very rarely, did Taranee see something she liked. "Hey, mom'? Did you see the ribbon for Taranee's gift? Mom?"

"I wouldn't-" The rest was jumbled out, as Lillian Hale ran into the room with an elated look on her face - her pussy-cat following after her, a great lace ribbon tied brashly around his neck. Cornelia frowned, quietly and pushed out a slow breath as she tapped her foot.

"Lillian! Her dad is allergic to fur!"

"You can't be _that _allergic!"

"Well.. You don't know that!" With that, Cornelia pushed herself to face away from the girl; instead studying the pristine content of her kitchen until she felt as though she could search for something to substitute. She could only ever note the empty echo of her steps; a gentle noise that followed the hard floors within this fortress.

In silence, Cornelia fumbled through her mother's stock, putting little effort into keeping the smudges of fingerprints from her face being spilled within the woman's desk-drawers: her prize and foundation for reliving what she'd done wrong. Eventually her fingers laced over a delicate cream that would match entirely. She plucked the lace from within and pushed the drawer closed, all in silence for a guilt in her heart.

She hadn't even bothered to get Will a present. Neither had Hay Lin, because Cornelia had told her not to bother. It all seemed so distantt now. So close to reality they knew now..what Will had been wishing for when she'd blown out her candles (not that anyone had been invited to such an event): nothing.

Will hadn't had anything to hope for. And Will - the real Will - would only condemn a present now.


	4. Chapter 4

Matthew Olsen winced as his senses slowly came into focus; the thick scent that polluted the air and forcing bile to crawl the height of his throat. "Jesus!"

The boy heaved over the surface beneath him, his throat burning and a slow churn catalysing in his chest, his arm wavering in strength as he used the right to hold himself in a crawl. The stench only worsened, but barely so and Matt stared down at the contents of his own stomach blindly as he tried to strain coherent thought. His gaze swept over the rocky surface, the scraty grey that had an underlying salty scent under the prominent odour.. "Sulphur."

"Hu-" Matt's eyes shot to the heart-shaped face of a young woman in fiery red, the colour suddenly bringing his obscure fog of his mind into focus and allowing him to note the thick red substance in which she seemed to be enthralled into a patronizing gaze on him.. He'd been.. Had he..? Questions that bubbled in his mind alike what appeared to be some _boiling magma_ were pierced and dishevelled by his growing angst. He watched, stunned as the slender woman pushed herself out of the crater; he decidedly hoped himself to still be thoroughly drunk as explanation for the magma forming into lean, shapely legs.

The defined woman stood and stared critically down at him; confidence radiating from her as his pulse and strength weakening. A nimble foot pushing his cheek so that again he faced the slated rock. "Get it up and Nerissa might not realize what a disaster you are..yet."

"Where am I!" Matt pushed himself up, ignoring his screaming mind and body as he wiped his mouth and sat on his knees - not trusting himself to stand as his vision swerved in and out of focus. A heavy feeling ran through him and Matt glowered at what he presumed to be some sort of enemy.. He'd spent most of his time pushing Will to the back of his mind[0].

A gruff laugh alerted to him to a second presence and he watched in awe as the woman walked to the slightly translucent man sitting on a rock; he seethed in annoyance as she dragged a finger over the back of his shoulders and a slightest steam seemed to evaporate from him. Matt Olsen realized that this was certainly not his world.. "Hell."

**...**

Elyon Brown woke in a bed that was not her own. Her fingers trailed wickedly over the pristine blue velvet beneath her; a mother's sheets radiating the virginal purity that her mind was not.. Not her mother either and she'd initially only done it to somehow spite him: somehow hoping for the Prince to be irked by what he didn't know, despite the fact that she could never dare tell him..

It had become her monastery in her waking hours though.. A wishfulness clouding bottomless grey eyes that somehow this cathederal of rich heavenliness might save her soul. Perhaps a hope that she would find her mother, but only dark lusts and corrupt smites of the past Queen's progenies filled her mind in the night time and there would be no denial.. Elyon did nothing in attempt to stay awake.

So here she lay, where only her high-maid could join her. She'd sent some quote of regality in her staying her, but in truth it was none of these things. This room was no revenge, nor churchly baptism. This room held no mother of hers and held no past to her other than infidelities.

It was a place of hiding.

The fact that Elyon adored the room made it no less an imprisonment; it was her banishment, an exile worthy of royalty. The young Queen lay over a simple furniture, still better than her.. Whispering prayers within her mind. Craving some Angel in her silence.

* * *

><p>[0] As in Will's "magical qualities"<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

It was a strange cogent; a persuasive, curving body on his bed inspiring culpability in him. Dean Collins had long found that he could not often deny Susan Vandom.

If, maybe, she wasn't so clearly hurting - there was no room for condescending those who knew they were doing wrong. Susan lay amongst a cheap, grey duvet he'd never replaced; entangled in it, though he was well aware that she wasn't sleeping, her olive eyes firmly on the bed. And she wanted to go back - not in the current sense of the odd day she currently went back to check Will's status in existence. "I think you should go home."

Dean climbed onto a sturdy mattress, while the woman beside him did not falter. Taking her time in constructing an answer: some declination of his suggestion. He couldn't keep doing this.

"I- Will is fifteen. Legally, you can't leave her.. _I_ can't let you!"

"Dean.." The stubborn tone immediately replied and he knew that she wanted to go back. "That's not my hom-"

"That's your _daughter_!" Frustration hit a nerve when she sat up, a scowl on her face and she didn't know how much she and her daughter were alike. Professor Dean Collins was no man of any violence or anger, and yet he fisted the sheets in restraint.. Couldn't she see what she was doing? He almost felt the need to shake her because Susan could only be making things worse. "Susan.. It's not optional as to whether you raise your own child! You have a responsibility!"

"Don't tell me about raising my child."

Susan glowered over glazing eyes and he knew the frustration was there.. Dean sighed as the body of frustration lurked to her. "..Look.. She's been.._better_. Much better. At least she's not in detention every day.."

"Personally I think proving points on _my side_." Dean looked away as she spitefully spat the words and crossed her arms over.. But Susan's heart faltered before his head did. "'..I just can't look at her like this.."

**...**

Nerissa smirked at the child who did little to hide or fight; she clutched, shaking, at her head with fingers scraping through her hair. Protecting herself, or trying, from the dark wave of magic Nerissa was obviously emitting.. And then, it must've hurt. Doubts swirling in her mind: for how long, had this not been her mother? It was rather impressive - though thoughts blasted from Will so clearly the Oracle might even see them - that the little child had realized Nerissa.. Apparently from her touch..it burned her. "_What have you done to her?_"

Barely a whisper seethed bravely through Will's lips in fear. Nerissa felt the Heart of Kandrakar as she so protectively coiled it round her neck, it's lace so easily reached.. A proof of power, in a drop Nerissa changed and smirked at the pained structure cowering below her. "What mother?"

**...**

Nigel Ashcroft's heart pounded as he stared at the door; she lived directly below his father and it wouldn't be the first time he'd been.. But perhaps the first time that Nigel had intentionally knocked on Will Vandom's door...that was, if he could bring himself to do such a thing. There had always been something about the girl that caused Nigel to shrink back, even despite Uriah Dunn and the _'Outfielders' _he could easily oblige to. But it wasn't the first time he'd heard her screaming..and he didn't think it was - as his dad has sighed to him - the female teenager's hormones.. She'd been screaming for _someone_. "..W-Will?"

A rage of his mind flashed images of things that were warped and indecent.. Had someone broken in? Was someone hurting her? Was it the _Caleb_? Nigel saw no existance in which Caleb would ever do anything to hurt Will: even when he'd gotten angry it was in protecting Will and Nigel quickly resolved _no_.. But what could it be?

"Will! Open the door! Are you okay?" Nigel found insecurity overwhelming reserve and her desperately turned the handle, pressing his weight against the door as a noise of pain pierced through him. There was someone in there! There had to be! Something was wrong! Nigel stepped back and threw himself at the door, finding no avail.. He grabbed a now bruised arm and frowned. "Will! I'm calling the police!"

"You're what?" He jumped about a foot and came to face Irma Lair, who gaped at him with startled compression. Her blue eyes flashed over him and to the door and he suddenly felt better to have someone with him.. And she had her father..Nigel was sure her father was in the fire brigade or police or.. Nigel suddenly felt incredibly stupid, as the girl pushed her fingers over the ledge of the doorframe and secured a key.. His heart still pounding because something had smashed. "Go home, Nigel.."

"What! No! You.. You don't even have a weapon! Shouldn't you call your dad or-"

"I'll use you as a weapon if I have to!" At that she forced the door open and he jumped as it swung and hit something behind it. Irma Lair took a careful step in and he pulled her back as he stepped forward..he wouldn't let someone else get hurt and.. "Will.."

**...**

Mahogany eyes stared down at the drops in her mother's cream carpet; the salt-water ashes that accompanied unwanted sobs as she let her hair veil her.. Will didn't bother to see what the witch had done.. Will didn't want to see, but suddenly everything became a thousand times worse as someone stepped closer and.. "Maybe you shouldn't- Is she alone?"

"W-Will, what happened?"

As soon as the girl's fingers graced her back, Will had jumped and Irma flinched away, but Will felt better. Just knowing.. Will flung her arms around the girl, burying her face into Irma's jacket and suddenly finding her breaths quickening to dangerously rapid. "H-He's gone and sh-she.."

"Look, Nigel, she's just upset and I don't think she.. There isn't anyone here." Will didn't bother to look for a face to match the name; her mind blurred and her body purged of all things holy as the black scar cursed through her bones and back to it's origin where Irma was.. "W-Will.. Is this.. Was this.."

Will slowed herself. She could feel the girl's fingers cooly gracing her skin; pulling taunt to black image that seemed embedded into her skin.. "It...hurts."

Will didn't have anything more valid to say.


	6. Chapter 6

Okay, this is it - one a day for a while. My mind has gone entirely blank and my confidence is shot for the sake of a male of the species... Forgive me, he is my Caleb :L :L

* * *

><p>"Where have you been?" Cool green eyes stared fixedly at the questioner, a detachment having been placed into emotions that bitterly refused to well. It was as though Caleb had taken too many steps back and wasnt sure whome he was talking to; where he was going. It took far too long for a rigid jaw to tense and shift. "Caleb.."<p>

"Does it matter?" Apparently so. There was a question as to where he had gone. As to how he had survived. And once there had been a question as to who's side he'd been playing on. Aketon doubted that he'd ever know how Caleb had lived so long.

"Den xéro, Caleb. Does it?" Aketon watched him then, as Caleb strode away. He had gotten thinner at the very least, though Aketon had thought it a good thing and never put much to it. A child needn't be in constant so heavily built.. But then, this wasn't the peace they'd been expecting.

**...**

Nerissa could taste the bitter sulphur between thin lips, her sharp rounded thighs accentuated in her long, curved strides. There was no lacking of intelligence; he held his breath as she passed, no hint of ignorance until blunt, egotistical bravery consumed his rotten flesh. Nerissa had motioned to pass Matt Olsen without a second glance. "Who are you?"

"Mmn.." Nerissa scowled contemptfully, making a sound of discontent in his claiming right to speak. She crinked her neck in displeasure, before whirling around. And his little eyes bulged in surprise as he felt his lips being pressed together by something stronger than Quintessence. At least as Nerissa had known it. If this was the power that Will Vandom ought to have, Nerissa's direct absorbtion seemed to fuel her.. She wanted it all.

"Mngph!"

She sneered at that; her feminine features prettily breathing a laugh at his panic, because he wouldn't get his lips to open. Nerissa knew what she was doing: knew how to use her power. And he wouldn't be able to open his mouth. Nerissa strode toward him and pointed a sharp nail to his chest, grasping his attention away from his disfunction. "You listen, this is _my _work. Keep quiet before I decide against a plan B."

Again, a smart young man. She eyed his thin beard and the length of his lanky form in the silence. Then she turned and moved on. As she had said: her work.

**...**

Matthew Olsen felt his chest tighten more than neccessarily; her slender frame sashaying away, and he cursed his mind for actually wondering whether he'd had sex with her! He slowly dropped back to his knees, not bothering to check whether his jaw had loosened, the sensation being of his tongue being stuck to the roof of his mouth when he did try to speak.

He only recalled hitting on her...the phone...Will...

"_Exolothrévei, zoun. Zuckt, lamouré_." The words seemed to dance luxuriously off of an incredibly sharp tongue, he watched her daintily pull hairs that she threw into a fire. Matt jumped when the fire immediately turned green, and doused... But his eyes kept drawing back over her figure... Burnt, violent violet eyes... "_Exolothrévei, zoun. Zuckt, lamouré._"

There was no denying that she was beautiful... But Matt didn't doubt that that wasn't the only reason his heart was pounding.

"_Exolothrévei, zoun. Zuckt, lamouré._"

Fear.

* * *

><p>Den xéro, Caleb. Does it? - I don't know, Caleb. Does it?<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

The thin, slitting black exuded it's poisonous lines, curving over her skin. More of a wound than any stain; an undeniable bruise, and Will had pales and slumped over the table, possibly fatigue ruling her fear as it drained her. A stifling tension appeared to follow her now. Yan Lin pursed her lips in the dark thought that Nerissa only wanted her to experience: the consideration that the Oracle might be wrong. He wasn't. Whilst Will half lay, in monotone silence, Yan Lin fiddled through slender remidies for something that might ease the child's pain; there was nothing to remove it. "Tell me..Caleb went for a walk."

"If he did, he can think twice about coming-!" A soft smile drew sadly as Yan Lin stopped herself, cutting the words that weren't unlikely to drift where a capable Will wasn't. Yan Lin's small pupils focussed ahead as the slender frame stood tall, feigning strength from behind her. Yan Lin didn't face much doubt that Caleb was dead.. She _hoped _that he was dead. Because even if Nerissa bartered, it wasn't as simple as Will giving or not giving a cold stone away. Yan Lin didn't doubt Will would if she could. "I doubt it."

"But- Will didn't say anything about hi-"

"Will hasn't said _one _word since she got here."

"Can't you at least _try_ to be positive?"

"I am _being _realistic." Yan Lin spat the words - bitter for Nerissa's sake, rather than Cornelia's - turning to the blonde and finding pity enveloping her. Polluting what had never been a clear mind. Glacier blue swimming desperately with fears as Cornelia shrank. Nodding her head and Yan Lin sighed, "Nerissa doesn't know what she thinks she knows."

"She's a fraud?" Yan Lin shook her head and saw Cornelia's anxiety grow.

"A fraud would claim to _be _Quintessential. Nerissa merely can't accept that she couldn't hold the power, that Will is better for the job."

"Will _isn't _better for the job." Yan Lin raised her brows at that, Cornelia's voice shaking in a sudden burst of anger, frustration. "She shouldn't have to do this stuff!"

"_We _were given great power, Cornelia. _You _were given great ability." Yan Lin's own voice shook. "Will was born this way...and Nerissa... Nerissa was obsessed."

**...**

"Obsessed.. In what..context..?" Cornelia said the words in caution, Yan Lin fragiley shaking; the woman's worry failing her in attempts to maintain composure. To hold something back in her words.

"She...killed a friend. Her friend, mine." Cornelia's features hardened in fear of breaking then, the world blurring around her once Yan Lin had gone on with a startling familiarity. "She was withdrawn, angry. Nerissa can control people in more ways than you'll think. It was as though she couldn't see, she couldn't help herself and it got worse because she let herself hate everyone else. Nerissa fell when she blamed the Oracle."

Cornelia swallowed in silence as Yan Lin looked somewhere further than she could see. "She.. Will.."

"Nerissa wants to prove that Will is the same." Solid black shot back to her meaningfully. "So she made Will that way. ..Will already proved herself to me."

Cornelia frowned then, wondering more of why Will needed to, than how Will had _proven worthy_.

"She tried to give it back."

**...**

The cool rotting of flesh had long climbed it's sensation from the inside of her wrist, clinging possessive fingers around her lungs and blackening her vision into blurs of poisonous hatred. The corpses of breath rolling over the innards of her throat as her very tongue began to taste of bile.

Bland copper stared, repulsed by the sight of Hay Lin. Who stared at her, contented in her work of watching over. "Are you okay?"

_Vapid _was the word that came to mind, but the mere idea of opening her mouth send shivers of images, because she didn't want them to know; she feared crumbling into nothing. Instead, Will only sent a twitched move to her fingers, the numb sensation washing over her dejectedly and somehow painfully.

Hay Lin's large eyes had darted to the movement, as Will's glaring eyes stung in defiance of the need to blink. The pale-skinned asian shrugged, and Will felt unease washing through her. "I'll take that as..sorta.."

"Will you..get me some water?" Will cursed the croaky scrap of a voice, but forced herself to sit despite every aching moan of her body. She felt so heavy. Caleb was gone.

And she thanked her decision to speak as in a moment, after a single look of confusion and need, so was Hay Lin.

It was like silence was beckoning her.


End file.
